1. Articles

Filthy with Erotic Mystery

Jonathan Bate, Ted Hughes, The Unauthorised Life, William Collins, 2015, 672pp, £25 (hardback) First, a few confessional words: I was…

The Rain Horse

From our archives – this short story was first published by The London Magazine in February 1960. As the young…

The Rat

The landlady watches herself in the living room mirror, phone held to her ear. In the blurred morning light her…

Grappling with Structure

  Giacometti: Pure Presence, National Portrait Gallery, London, until 10th January 2016 Giacometti lived a peculiarly double life, despite his…

Painterly Figuration

  Eileen Hogan, Browse & Darby, London, 9 September – 2 October 2015 Julian Perry, Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent,…

Infinite Archive

Disinformation, Frances Leviston, Picador, 2015, 80pp, £9.98 (paperback) Kim Kardashian’s Marriage, Sam Riviere, Faber, 2015, 112pp, £10.99 (paperback) These two…

Beneath the Crust

Goya – The Portraits, National Gallery, London, until 10 January 2016 To most, the mention of the name Francisco Goya…

Ghostly Mentor

Complete Poems, Muriel Spark, Carcanet, 2015, afterword by Michael Schmidt, 133pp, £14.99 (paperback) Complete Poems, R.F. Langley, Carcanet, 2015, edited…

My London

Jennifer Johnson has always lived in London, except for a few years spent in Brussels and Oxford. She is currently…

Neat Shape?

Gimson’s Kings and Queens: Brief lives of the monarchs since 1066, Andrew Gimson, Square Peg, 2015, 256pp, £10.99 (hardback) Penguin…

Faithful and Disappointing

The Importance of Elsewhere – Philip Larkin’s Photographs, Richard Bradford, Frances Lincoln, 2015, 208pp, £25 (hardcover) © The Estate of…

Snow Ice Cream

The snow of ’88 was the one that everybody remembers. Nixxon and I had cheap, roll-up plastic sleds that endlessly…

Under

Crammed up against the end of the carriage on the Hammersmith & City, as we head underground I hear an…

Fin

That’ll be my heartbeat clicking in my throat as we cartwheel to our expiry date. Are you trying to be…

Ikey’s Bones

– What was your offence? – Receiving stolen property. – And who is with you? – I have one girl,…

Mocking Gods

Lost in the library of Alexandria, proof Selene the moon goddess mocked Apollo her sun god twin, each mocking the…

Spare Room

Trees scratch at the panes with bony branches Tap away time, and its second chances. Strange. This bed is disused,…

One Night Only

Too few saw you in your last theatre role, the affected hero of La Forêt mouillée, Victor Hugo’s seldom-performed verse…

Lucipher

The name we went by when we shared an address @compuserve. you thought of it. Straight away, I adored its…

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